Greg Abbott’s law-and-order campaign is a smart play for suburban Fort Worth voters
Texas Republicans have it easy this fall.
Their campaign message is simple: Pay the police, fund the police, love the police.
But Texas Democrats, out of power and out of luck at the Texas Capitol for 18 years, have a tougher climb.
Their message is complicated: Train police better, don’t give police too much money, love police with community values.
Gov. Greg Abbott is staking out that simple law-and-order campaign as Republicans’ best path to keep control of the Texas House and five up-for-grabs seats in Tarrant County.
Republicans’ campaign message fits in one line: ”No defunding the police.”
Control of Texas Republicans’ future might rest on open House seats in Mansfield-Crowley and another in Hurst-Euless-Bedford. Democrats also hope to flip Republican House seats in southwest Fort Worth, north Fort Worth and southwest Arlington.
In a homestretch campaign conducted mostly through direct mail, TV and social media, Texas Republicans will focus on one issue that regularly brings out the suburban vote.
Just look what your neighbors post on the NextDoor app.
They don’t post about the Affordable Care Act or campaign finance reform.
They post about crime.
To flip those seats, Democrats, who have spent much of this year talking about justice reform or COVID-19, will need a response to President Donald J. Trump’s blustery cry of “law and order!” and Abbott’s more tempered “Back the Blue in Texas.”
The two messages aren’t exactly the same, UT Arlington associate political science professor Rebecca Deen said.
Abbott’s campaign for House Republicans is more strategically tailored to target voters “who are more weakly aligned with Republicans, or who might be thinking about voting against the President,” she wrote.
Texas voters have seen how the Dallas city council plans to cut $7 million in police overtime, or how the Austin city council cut $20 million in police recruiting and shifted $130 million in police civilian positions and duties to other managers.
Linking Texas Democrats to progressive Democrats’ defunding effort is good for a Texas GOP pulled down by a controversial president, Rice University political science professor Mark P. Jones wrote by email.
“A majority of Texans still hold the police in high regard and believe that cuts to police funding will put them and their families at greater risk of being victimized by criminals,” he wrote.
“... Abbott’s gambit puts Democrats on the defensive, since on one hand they don’t want to say anything that will anger the party’s progressive base that supports efforts to reduce police funding, but at the same time they don’t want to alienate middle-class swing voters in places like Bedford, Mansfield and Plano.”
In the June University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, independent Texans had a favorable view of police 44%-29%.
“As long as he can avoid some of the racist undertones of President Trump’s law and order campaign (which is very likely),” Jones wrote, “Governor Abbott should be able to use this issue to boost the vote for Republicans.”
Texas Republicans’ law-and-order effort began a month ago, with an Abbott press conference in south Fort Worth that featured four-term incumbent state Rep. Craig Goldman.
“When people say they want to defund the police — that scares people,” Goldman said.
“People are scared and rightfully so .... All they want to do is lie in their bed and protect their families and feel safe in their own homes.”
Goldman faces a strong District 97 challenge from Democrat Elizabeth Beck, a U.S. Army Reserves Iraq War veteran endorsed by former President Barack Obama.
Beck and other Texas Democrats responded Friday by signing their own pledge.
It includes another complicated message: “I support efforts to reform and eradicate system racism in the criminal justice system.”
But it ends with a simple seven words that say everything about where this campaign has gone:
“I do not support defunding the police.”
This story was originally published September 12, 2020 at 3:58 PM.
